Saturday, 29 July 2017

Having had three public transport malfunctions this week –
one so serious we totally missed a booked outing to the Salters Hall – we
played close to home today thinking a simple trip down the Overground would be
hazard free, but of course there were cancellations by the time we were making
our way home.

The museum is housed in what was the former Town Hall: a
splendid Victorian building complete
with statue and celebratory friezes – very much the type of building the proud
civic elders would have had built to serve and promote their locality.

Croydon Museum, like ancient Gaul (still in Roman mode after
last week’s trip) is divided into three parts of which we managed two. We did
not have enough time for the second floor gallery devoted to the Museum’s art
collection which focuses on works by those artists born or resident in the
borough, and competent artworks of places in and around Croydon. These you can see in greater detail here.

On the lower ground floor there is the Riesco gallery, a
collection bequeathed to Croydon by local businessman Mr Riesco, or, according to this item, what remains of it. I had been here (between
changing buses as several numbers congregate outside the Clock Tower, as the Town
Hall is now known.) when there were more ceramics on display and certainly no
skeleton. Some of the pots have gone and those left, mainly Chinese, are
arranged to show the development of different techniques, the introduction of
new colours and more sophisticated designs. I personally love a pot but can also
see that in these cash strapped days many councils might feel there was a case
to trade in a few of them to release
enough money to refurbish the local theatre and concert halls.

The skeleton displayed in the Riesco Gallery as 'Bones of Croydon' is a relatively recent find and is beautifully displayed here – each bone named and a
dating puts him as Anglo-Saxon and with probable healing rickets!!

Having established that there were isolated dwellings and
inhabitants in the area, the Museum which relates to the history of Croydon is
on the first floor and offers you a circular tour through linked galleries
covering the years 1800- to the present with stories told through individual
artefacts.

Even in 1800 there was little except fields hereabouts –
criss-crossed by four main roads to Brighton, London Mitcham and Wickham which
met somewhere later to become Croydon…

For each group of objects which might contain a tool, a
book, a letter, a photo or drawing and a memento there would be a corresponding
touch screen, where the visitor could select which item they wanted information
on and how much of it, thus: the object, to whom it belonged, the context both
local and national and an additional explanation if the object is arcane or
archaic… This works very well as you can follow, in a very legible (or audible
– where possible, the explanation is provided by an extract from an interview
with the donor) form, individual paths, stories and histories. The major flaw
of course comes when a display screen does not function as then you have no
idea at all what the object might be
or its significance… Today two of the many screens were out of order, most
annoyingly in the World War II section, but there was plenty to detain, inform
and entertain us.

There are some big exhibits – a large clock from the
Greyhound Pub, the stained glass window from a local builder, and most
intriguingly a section of pipe, which sucked or pushed air fast enough to
propel a train along a track – a relic from
a project to connect Croydon to Forest Hill by such a system. There is a small model where you can
demonstrate this but the Atmospheric Railway was ‘an idea ahead of its time’ in
terms of the fit between the concept and then-available materials, which is
perhaps why Croydon is not remembered
as a pioneer of modern transportation.

Smaller random objects include Fitzroy’s iguana – as it
happens that intrepid navigator and companion of Darwin is considered a ‘local’.

For the early period smaller items include a letter sent by a
local MP: they had free mail until the Penny Post was established in 1840 when
they paid the same as everyone else. There is an 1849 Board of Health seal
which must have been an early fore-runner of local authority health and safety
inspections. Talking of food outlets Sainsbury’s had an early store here and
the display includes some loyalty tokens given out to customers – what benefits
they gave is not explained!

Moving onto the 20th century there is testimony
form a local M&S employee who said she worked 74 hours a week but loved it
(I’m actually not sure how that is possible as there was no Sunday opening at
that time) . One of the more poignant exhibits is a black leather shoe with
‘padlock’ fastenings used to ensure the patients at Cane Hill did not remove
their footwear... This website shows the ruinsof the once large and imposing
mental health facility but you will not be surprised to know that it is now a vast housing development !

Talking of housing much of Croydon is residential and there
was a significant expansion in the Twenties and Thirties with developments
round Coulsdon in particular.

These were referred to as ‘Dream Houses’ though whether the rail
journeys that transported you into town were quite so dreamy is another matter
(some bitterness here as a trip to Farthing Down earlier in the week resulted
in a near 2 hour journey and we start south of the river…) .

The other major housing developments are also well represented
with the homes for 20,000 people built at New Addington ready to move into in
1955. This was primarily necessary as Croydon had suffered so much from German
bombing during the Second World War; this was partly strategic as Luftwaffe
targets fell short but there was also enough light industry and Croydon airport
as targets in their own right. The third major housing expansion came with the Forestdale building through the Seventies and as this link suggests, much improved links came with the tram system.

60,000 homes were damaged in the war and in spite of many
children evacuated there were still about 5,000 deaths. On a single night 62
people were killed when a bomb hit Croydon airport though the news was
suppressed for ‘morale‘ reasons.
Croydon’s war is commemorated among other exhibits in a painting ‘Croydon
Courageous’ by local artist Norman Partridge and by a very unusual rendition of
the Battle of Britain in lace.

Part of the major post-war rebuild included both the
Fairfield Halls and the Whitgift centre so called because Trinity School (linked
to the Whitgift bequest) moved from its
central location leaving the local authority free to build what was one of the
UK’s earliest shopping malls., and arguably the start of ‘destination’
shopping. There have been many since it opened in 1970 and inevitably it is now
showing its age and changing tastes and demographics and shopping destinations
have led to the current decline. As for the Fairfield Halls, their history is well documented with
many posters programmes and photos covering the numerous celebrities who appeared over the
years. They are of course currently closed due to a major refurbishment funded
in part by the sell-off of some museum items referred to earlier…

The Sixties and Seventies were a vibrant time for Croydon:
many of the Art College alumni went on to greater fame, especially Bridget
Riley who taught and Malcolm McLaren who studied there.

Croydon is a very diverse borough and has a long history of welcoming
overseas workers and their families and these are well represented amongst the
exhibits – we liked Sisi’s photo as she proved to be the first black woman who
worked for the police. Some samples from
the huge Wing Yip outlet reminded us that Purley Way is not just for IKEA.. The articles ‘from home’ are very
poignant as was a rumpled sports bag and
blanket belonging to a formerly homeless young man and the history of George,
born of indeterminate gender (but clearly his parents opted for him to be a
boy) until years of feeling different allowed
him to become Georgina…

As noted earlier, Croydon also has a large art collection
which is featured in a specific gallery on the second floor which we did not have
time to visit today; however, several of the star works, including the Riley
and a Tagore, are integrated amongst the exhibits in the main display.

There are some drawbacks to the Museum’s system of ‘choosing’
what to follow up as it can leave large gaps: if you don’t guess which object
is the gateway to a major theme you may miss that strand altogether. But
equally it means you can visit and revisit and gain different impressions and
experiences each time, so perhaps a good idea after all?

Saturday, 22 July 2017

“Adjacent to Orpington Station” is one of the selling points
of this volunteer run Museum, under the watchful eye of the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit
so we left our train and walked through the car park and the story of the
museum proved to be a tale of car parks various.

Research has shown that the Roman villa was built following
the Romanisation of England in the 2nd Century and occupied and altered
over the following 250 or so years. Its site was on a ridge overlooking the
Cray valley below, though now what you notice most is that it appears to be on
a slope between the station and the road both of whose foundations, back at the
start of the last century, evidently destroyed much more of the remains than
the comparatively small section available for public view today. Seemingly the
building of the railway did not cause a stir amongst the archaeological
community but by 1926 when the foundations for the new Civic Building were
going up the first remains were discovered. Both the former town hall and the
station did and do have car parks and while the latter were being extended
again in 1955 (Orpington has always been prime commuting territory) there were
some limited excavations but the site was given proper attention in 1988 and
was opened in its current configuration four years later.

Research has also revealed that the original villa probably
had about 16 rooms, until at some stage late in the 3rd Century the
family retrenched to one end of the property at which point they updated the
heating system seemingly as part of their ‘downsizing’. The building was sophisticated
enough to have glass windows and a heavy roof, with pottery shards from ‘round
the Empire’. The remains are such that you can walk round most sides and peer
into the foundations – the rooms are numbered and the education officer pointed
out the two styles of heating (both underfloor in the modern way) some with
underfloor ducts and some with the floor raised on small pillars in part
reconstructed. This was not a really sophisticated villa (or maybe multi
coloured floor mosaics had gone out of fashion) but the original floors were etheropus signinum(mottled
pink concrete) or tessellated terra cotta tiles.

What was really impressive about this display was the wealth
of educational material on display on small tables round the ruins. Here groups
of visitors, particularly young visitors, could get seriously involved in a
variety of activities. There was a table of Roman games complete with rules and
replicas, dolls to dress, dressing up clothes from farm boy to senator, quiz
sheets, trails and a range of Roman ‘brass rubbings’ figures dressed
appropriately for their stature and place in the well explained Roman society.
The walls are covered in charts explaining the life of a legionnaire, a child, a
family, what they ate, and so on…

There is also a touch table with fragments from the dig (you
can also dig for finds in a sand tray with appropriate archaeological trowel and
brush) with numbers to indicate where they were found. Those artefacts which
were found whole are available in reproduced forms to handle.

The volunteer on duty said when they were open they were
fully booked with school groups and had just said good bye to the last one – it
being the end of the school year. However they also run holiday activities.

For the more serious student there are large volumes
covering all the ‘digs’ in Kent as a handy map shows there were far more villas
around then you might think. Lullingstone Roman Villa
is more extensive and complete but lies
beyond the M25. Because of two millennia
of building there are comparatively few Roman remains within Greater
London and this is certainly the only villa
open to the public. Though the display is small the volunteers who
manage it have maximized the impact and it makes a surprisingly refreshing
visit.

Saturday, 15 July 2017

Ham House was an easy add-on to our visit to the Richmond
Museum – all it took was a pleasant mile or so’s almost entirely car-free stroll
along the river on a path offering views of passing boats and a wide choice of
benches for lunchtime sandwiches. The
planes, of course, flew over continuously but we were able to forgive even them
on a beautifully sunny day.

Arriving this way your approach to Ham House is impressive:
a stately 17th Century red brick façade behind a garden courtyard featuring
hedges and topiary cones and cylinders of box (smelling wonderful in the sun),
a plethora of carved pineapples and classical busts and a Coade-stone statue of
Father Thames.

The house is surrounded by gardens. To the left (as you look at the front) is the
formally laid-out but rather misleadingly named Cherry Garden, which is
actually given over almost entirely to lavenders and santolina; to the right
the kitchen gardens, orchard etc, and behind the house an expanse of lawns and
a ‘wilderness’ which is again a bit of a misnomer given that it is very neatly
divided by hedges into a Union Jack pattern…

Ham House was originally built in 1610 on land leased from
the royal family by Sir Thomas Vavasour, Knight Marshal to James I, for whom
the river would have made a pleasant commuter route to work at court whether in
London, Windsor, Richmond or Hampton Court.
After Vavasour died in 1620, the house went briefly to another tenant
but in 1626 the house was leased by William Murray, 1st Earl of
Dysart, and by dint of some very astute politicking, inheritance and marriage management
and general wheeler-dealering (not least through the difficult period of the
Civil War, Commonwealth and Restoration) Ham thereafter remained a Dysart family
property through no fewer than nine Earls and Countesses – a confusingly large
number of them called Lionel or Elizabeth – until it was donated to the
National Trust in 1948. An early example
of a useful marriage was that between a Dysart heiress and the Duke of Lauderdale,
who served a stint as Charles II’s Secretary of State for Scotland and was the
‘L’ in the King’s 'CABAL'

kitchen cabinet.

Lauderdale apart, the family seems not to have made a
conspicuous contribution to ‘public service’ in any of the traditional
aristocratic forms – government, military or religious – but its history does
throw up some spectacular alternations of wealth and debt, large broods of
children and childlessness, lavish restoration of the house (the Duke and
Duchess created several of the rooms you now see at Ham) and near total
neglect, and hospitality and reclusiveness, all of which you can read about in
the guide book or here.

We found the house itself imposing rather than inviting –
the need to keep light levels low to protect the old panelling, tapestries,
inlaid floors and leather wall coverings unfortunately make it all rather
gloomy and there was nothing above stairs that encouraged you to think of it as
a home where a family might actually have enjoyed living. In this reaction, we seem to be echoing
Horace Walpole, who visited the house in 1770 after one of his nieces married
into the family. Even that well-known
lover of things Gothic(k) found it all a bit much: “The old furniture is so
magnificently ancient, dreary and decayed, that at every step one’s spirits
sink, and all my passion for antiquity could not keep them up.” In the care of the National Trust, ‘decayed’
is no longer fair, but we wouldn’t argue too much with ‘ancient’ and ‘dreary’.

Visitors enter by the
old main entrance, straight into the Great Hall which has an unusual first
floor gallery and a fine black and white marble floor. Pausing for the very dark (even by Ham
standards) chapel, you come to the splendid Great Staircase with impressive
wood carving and plasterwork, an action-packed painting of the Battle of
Lepanto and a number of ‘after-Titian’ type pictures.

From the top of the stairs, you go back through the Hall at
Gallery level, with many family portraits, into the North Drawing Room and then
into the Long Gallery which is not actually as long as some we have seen but
still provides hanging space for several more family portraits by Lely and
others. Opening off the Long Gallery is
the Green Closet – a rare example of a ‘cabinet of curiosities’ surviving from
before the Civil War when such showcases for treasured knickknacks were all the
rage. This one has many miniatures, and
a 1630s ceiling which (the room guide was careful to tell us) was not decorated
in situ but was actually made up of paper panels stuck to the ceiling after
they had been painted.

Diagonally across the Long Gallery is the ‘new’ Library,
constructed in the early 1670s: a pleasant working room rather than one for
socialising or showing off (although the books on the shelves are not original
to the house). The room guide pointed out that cedar wood darkens with age, so
the room would have been lighter when built; he also pointed out some of the
‘unknowns’ on the 18th Century globe.

The highlight of this first floor, back on the Green Closet
side, is a suite of Versailles-style State Apartments (Antechamber, Bed Chamber
and Closet) built to entice visits from Charles II’s Queen, Catherine of
Braganza. You visit in a brief guide-led
tour. The rooms have spent much of the
time since their installation shut off from the rest of the house, and are in
excellent condition, with parquet floors, tapestry hung walls, decorated
ceilings and fireplaces and grand furniture, though the state bed itself is no
longer present.

Returning to the ground floor, you can view a majestic WC
installed under the Great Staircase, with a wash basin offering three
taps (‘soft’ in addition to the usual H&C) before you go on to the suite of
apartments for the Duke and Duchess, each of whom originally had a similar set
of rooms as in the Queen’s Apartment upstairs, arranged either side of the
Marble Dining Room. The Duchess very
soon swapped bedrooms with the Duke so she could have easier access to a
bathroom she installed in the basement, though they seem otherwise to have hung
on to their own designated closets etc, which cannot have been convenient. The Duchess’s original bedroom, later the
Duke’s (keep up at the back) and subsequently a Drawing Room, is known as the
Volury Room. No, we didn’t know what
that meant either: it is not in our Collins dictionary and Google defaults to
‘Voluntary’ but it evidently has to do with birds, as the Duchess originally
had birdcages installed outside her bedroom windows. Another confusing name is the Marble Dining
Room, as the floor after which it was named (continuing the chequerboard
pattern of the Hall) was later replaced by parquet, but it remains a fine room
even if leather wall coverings are not to your taste.

From these apartments you pay a brief visit to a couple of
rooms allocated to senior domestics and then out again into the daylight. Round the side of the house you can gain
access to some of the below-stairs areas: a volunteer was demonstrating the
preparation of herbal posies and potions in the Still Room, and the Kitchen and
Cellars clearly provide scope for visiting school parties to unwind a bit. You can also visit the Duchess’s bathroom
referred to earlier, a corrective to all our lazy assumptions about personal
hygiene in the old days.

Out-buildings accommodate shops, café and loos, and lead
into the gardens, which we enjoyed very much.
Part of the Kitchen Garden is given over this year to growing the 35+ ingredients for a ‘Grand Salad’ that
the website describes as ‘a 17th Century showstopper’ inspired by
the writings of John Evelyn: you can get a taste (ho ho) of Evelyn’s thoughts
on ‘Sallets’ in this other blog.

We had a bit of a wander through the Wilderness and also
lingered in the so-called Cherry Garden, which is wonderful, though bee-lovers
might think the determination to grow all those lavender and cotton lavender
bushes as attractively coloured tufts of leaf rather than for their flowers is
a bit unfair.

Personally, we would put Ham House in the ‘interesting
rather than uplifting’ category of stately home, though we feel a bit guilty
saying so, as the property is very well looked after and everyone we met –
whether staff or volunteer – was helpful, efficient and enthusiastic. We still found plenty to look at, and the
gardens (and the tea room) are a good way of raising your spirits after visiting
he house.

Monday, 10 July 2017

Jo has a series of booked holidays and other commitments so
luckily the husband formerly known as 63 regular (no longer such as he has now
retired) volunteered to be my photographer. Given the fine weather we headed
slightly ‘out of town’ to very accessible Richmond and its museum.

Like most borough museums it is part of the Library Service and as such is housed upstairs in the Old Town Hall – a rather
sweet specimen of town hall architecture close to the river. I am not sure
where Richmond now runs its affairs from – it is something of a London anomaly
especially in its choice of MPs – but the Town Hall does nicely for the Museum. (Twickenham I'm told)

The first thing we learn is that Richmond was not always
Richmond, having started its (medieval) life as Shene or Sheen, but it does
have a long history of royal connections and this to a greater extent has
marked its development as an area. Edward III was the first monarch to decide
to build here – a handy journey upstream from London. (Henry V would later
found England’s largest Carthusian Abbey/Monastery nearby when these things
mattered.) When Edward’s palace burnt
down another was hastily built and then another – by this time we had got to
Henry VII. Henry had an earldom up in Richmond Yorkshire and so liked the Thames-side
residence he decided to rename it in
honour of his ‘other home’ and the name stuck. The ‘Shene’ bit got relegated to
the right and renamed East Sheen. His son spent time here but then cast envious
eyes on Wolseley’s residence along (I’m never very good with up/down) the river at Hampton.

Henry VIII’s presence at Hampton Court meant that his
various followers (and detractors) all tended to move to these ‘still handy for
London’ outskirts so the various houses that went up here all belonged to what sounded like the ‘cast list’
from 'Wolf Hall'.

By this time I was thinking whether Richmond had ever been
home to any ‘ordinary people’ but there was a board setting out very clearly the manorial system' and even more so the ‘dues’ of those at the bottom of the heap to those
above them. '

With the large Charterhouse Monastery destroyed (Cromwell
this time) and the palace in ruins after Charles I, with bits recycled up and down the streets
things seem to have gone a bit quiet. No less than five Royal parks had been
established (today Richmond and Old Deer parks) so there was never going to be
a building boom. We liked the keys for the parks and also Richmond Bridge
keeper’s leather money bag for tolls. Crossing the river hereabouts was always
an issue – there was a ford at Brentford (no s**t Sherlock), a bridge at
Kingston and a ferry (which still exists between Richmond and Ham House) so any
locality with pretensions needed its own bridge. The money was raised, not
quite by public subscription by via the Tontine system a
sort of combination of shares and lottery with the ‘last guy standing’ taking
all the shares (and any profit). Still it resulted in Richmond getting its
bridge, a forerunner of the current one. The little trumpeter is a replica
from said bridge.

The next major phase
of development seems to have come with the Georgians, III in particular, where
the Age of Enlightenment and the fashion for spas coincided. Not having
waters to drink other than the rather dubious Thames
meant Richmond ‘s life was rather limited as a spa town but George III did
establish a Royal observatory here. Richmond
was fashionable for longer than it was considered a spa boasting a theatre
(Edmund Kean was often seen and heard declaiming his Richard III) and both inns and hotels as visitors came from
London for all sorts of pleasures.

There are the usual displays of clay pipes and pots
including a rather fine ‘Bellarmine’ originally from Germany and poking fun at
the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Again with limited local industry development of
smaller homes seemed limited to tradesmen’s establishments. There is a corner
with chairs where you can watch videos celebrating the details of fine
architecture (cornices/lintels/architraves etc) in the grand houses round
Richmond Green and radiating out from there. It does not seem to be a
coincidence that the Lord Mayor of London ‘retired’ to Richmond and was promptly
elected its first mayor.

The boards tell us that ‘the railways made Richmond’ or with
three local stations (as seen on an old estate agents board’ it became (and
remains) prime commuting territory and continued its dominance as a venue for ‘a
good day out’ offering riverside treats and many inns, and by the Thirties
several cinemas. There were souvenirs to
be had, a proper transport map to guide you around of course the option for
souvenirs.

The only industry it seemed to boast was that rayon was
developed here, with two organic chemists Cross and Bevan forming the Kew
Viscose Spinning syndicate. They eventually sold out to Courtaulds but I did
learn that Viscose and modal are all derivatives of rayon; this last is hardly
used today with its connotations of post war austerity.

As is now expected the local museums will look at the impact
of both World Wars on their boroughs and people. The museum seems to consider
the impact of the first war to be minimal (what about the loss of life at the
front?) and certainly there was no local damage. Ironically however it was the war that gave Richmond two of its most
memorable institutions and both were linked in their aims to help the wounded
servicemen of the war – namely the Poppy Factory and the Star & Garter Home. The latter started life as a hotel,
becoming grander and grander, but then falling out of fashion so became a home
for those same disabled servicemen until they were moved to more suitable premises in 2013; as a listed building it is
now a very prestigious and pricey housing development.

There is the bomb damage map on display from World War II and
also an installation where you can listen to the oral history memories of both
world wars by former Richmond residents. We liked the handmade ARP and Home
Guard dolls that a daughter had made from her father’s original uniforms.

Post war development in Richmond has been limited – a few
estates in the Fifties but little since then and what has been is mainly
commercial. With no major employers there seems to have been little in the way
of an invited (as per ‘Windrush’ ) or subsequent overseas workforce leaving one
very much with one’s initial impression that Richmond is well …for the rich. I
t certainly has an interesting history as a borough
and area but it is one that lacks the diversity and vibrancy of many of the
other London boroughs – or at least as portrayed through its very neat and well
captioned museum.

Monday, 3 July 2017

At my request we had deferred this visit until after
half-term (obviously) and more importantly until after the 2017 Cup Final, in
which of course Arsenal beat one of their serious rivals Chelsea – 2-1. I have
to declare an interest here as being both the daughter of a now deceased season
ticket holder (Highbury) and the mother of two Emirates season ticket
holders. However as only having been to one live match
in my life it’s more a matter of having lived with the highs and lows of being
a football supporter at one remove, than being a true fan. This Museum is
clearly aimed at the true fan. Not being such, we opted for the Museum visit
only rather than the somewhat pricey Stadium tour combination.

Still, a daytime visit allows the visitor to admire the Stadium, both from afar (we
approached along the Holloway Road) and up close as you have to circulate the
ground to get to the museum. We started at the South End where the benches are
named after various star footballers and the ground is covered with little
metal plaques bought by supporters in their own or others’ memory. The family’s
younger season ticket holders had commemorated their granddad’s enthusiasm (and
he of course introduced them to the game and club) with an engraving though it
now looks rather scuffed. The white benches seemed a good idea as you could
arrange to meet your mates by the Robert Pires or Dennis Bergkamp before a
match.

I’ve always been a sucker for a stadium from the Roman
arenas onwards and was pleased to see there was generous circulating space all
round before going through security/turnstiles to the seats and grounds. Equally
generous is the toilet provision though we found it odd that the Ladies had no
mirrors…?

The Museum is in fact the other side of the walkways and is
built into the basement of a doubtless quite pricy block of flats which seems
to be part of the same development. We did have
some issues with the layout of the Museum (last refurbished July 2016) as it
has four short dead –end corridors/display areas which does not make for a
flowing experience. There were enough visitors today, without it being crowded,
to mean there is a certain mound of stepping aside. The displays themselves are well lit and
captioned – there are no interactive options which may be a good thing as more
often than not these can be and remain frustratingly ‘out of order’, which has
been our experience elsewhere. The displays are interspersed with large font captions
quoting past or present managers or
other commentators which have been well selected to highlight the changing
history and fortunes of the club. (If you want the ‘Thomas charging through the
midfield … it’s up for grabs now’ moment you need to take a seat in the little
cinema at the end… or just look on Youtube
)

Arsenal is so firmly rooted in North London that it is easy
to forget its origins among the ordnance workers of the Royal Arsenal at
Woolwich, who decided it might be fun to have a football team, put sixpence into a pot to that end, and
eventually found themselves playing on Plumstead marshes. Lest anyone should
forget. By 1891 they had been successful enough to turn professional. There is
a surprising amount of recognisable memorabilia from this era – team photos,
programmes and even a season ticket – all items we tend to think of as more
modern. By 1913 the club had moved to North London and there are huge photos of
supporters hanging on to all levels of the scaffolding as the Highbury stands go
up. Those are the kind of faces you see in all the pictures of soldiers on the
front during the First War and it is of course this generation that would have
gone off to fight. And here was one of the mysteries of this
museum – there was no mention of outside influences or events – that is neither
war, the Depression or even the globalisation of football in this century
though there is a map showing the origins of many of the recent football stars
and the various international supporters’ groups. You might have thought
between the teams of fit young men and the predominantly male supporters the
wars might have led to some ‘fall-off’ in performance or attendance??

Whatever the situation the club thrived through the Thirties
largely thanks to one man – Herbert Chapman who had many innovative ideas that
shaped the club – so not only were the Arsenal leaders in England they began to
have world fame . In 1931 Chapman introduced one of the most famous kits with
the contrasting sleeves and the gun logo – two elements which have persisted in
spite of some more florid interpretations along the way… (thankfully mainly confined to away strips)
Some of Chapman’s quotes are set alongside panels of his most famous players:
Cliff Bastin, Alex James, and Joe Mercer
who joined the team at the mature age of 32 playing on till 1954 when he broke
his leg.

Football resumed in 1946 with Arsenal gaining their first
post war Title in 1947, with Joe Mercer still playing. The History of Arsenal
from then on is impressive by any standards – significant wins at successive
Cup Finals and then winning the League when it became as prestigious, even if not more so,
than the knockout competitions . The managers’ contributions and achievements
are analysed and their star players too get panels – this part of the
exhibition is of course very colourful as we are well into the era of colour
photography and film. Managers featured include Bertie Mee, who managed through
the Sixties and early Seventies, on to George Graham and finally of course the
present incumbent Arsene Wenger. It has
to be said that not many other clubs could have organised their exhibits round
managers as not many other clubs stick with their managers to this extent… Additionally there are boots, rosettes,
shirts, programmes and trophies from specific and memorable matches plus credit
for the team of the Invincibles.

.

Although you can deduce the sponsors from the text on shirts
their role is not looked at considering what a significant contribution they
make.

There could be no history of Arsenal without reference to
its grounds; Highbury, built as it was through the Thirties had a workaday Art
Deco glamour to it and of course an intimacy, as it held comparatively few spectators.
With the need for all seater venues and to raise more revenue the move was
finally made to the current location in 2006. The listed facades of Highbury
were retained and turned into flats and to our delight the centre spot (looking
a little desiccated) was preserved and
is on display here!

The move took place in 2006 with the final match played and
won in May – there are photos of tearful fans – and the 2006-7 season played at
the new very splendid venue. The club did well
to stay so local (Wimbledon to Milton Keynes anyone?) and continues to
be very much part of the community. There are sections (where the four
historical ‘wings’ meet) which confirm Arsenal’s place in the world, its world
players in Arsenal and the various charities and groups it represents. There
has been a women’s team since 1987 and of course junior and outreach services.

We emerged after just under an hour; for me more than Jo
some child hood memories evoked by the early matches and names of the Fifties
when Saturdays at home were dominated by ‘an early lunch ‘ so my father could
drive(!) to the 3PM home fixtures, later
triumphs endlessly discussed or debated
by our younger fans till they
left home, and yes I nearly sent them to bed (it was a school night) before
Michael Thomas ran down that pitch… thank goodness for the action replay.

Above all this is a museum for fans and also allows the
visitor a glimpse into the stadium – there are stadium tours additionally but
we emerged sufficiently more knowledgeable and were impressed to see an
Accessibility Cycle scheme in action with a variety of tandems (side by side
and regular), adapted bikes, bicycles with wheelchair platforms being well used
by the community who were using the broad promenade area to ride in circuits,
and seemed to indicate accessibility was more than lip service.

The Project

In March 2009, we 'ladies who bus', Linda, Mary and Jo, decided to travel every London bus route from end to end. That project was completed in 2014 and we moved on to visiting every Museum in London. Now we are going back to the buses, to see what has changed in the intervening years.